Quote of the Day (Tim Wu, on Company ‘Convenience Cocoons’)

“The ideal business model for a company now is to create a space where almost everything a consumer wants is available so that person never has to leave. Amazon is perhaps the clearest example of this. Of course, it’s not impossible to leave Amazon’s cocoon and to buy things elsewhere, but the small frictions — like typing in credit-card numbers or creating new accounts — make a huge difference….[T]he careful cultivation of monopoly power tends to keep us inside the system once we’re in.”— Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu quoted by Josie Cox, “Escaping the Convenience Cocoon," Columbia Magazine, Winter 2025-26

The image accompanying this post, of Tim Wu at a 2018 “Curse of Bigness” event, was taken on Dec. 4, 2018, by New America.